20 Books of Summer 2023: What Men Say by Joan Smith

When I was a student, Joan Smith's was a name I heard often. Feminist, writer, journalist and social commentator, she was everything I wanted to be, and super cool too. When I took a paper in Women's Studies, Smith's Misogynies was a recommended read, but as time went by I have to admit I became more interested in her crime fiction. 

Loretta Lawson, Smith's amateur detective, is a lecturer in English at a fictitious college in London. She has been married to, but is now divorced from, John Tracey, an investigative journalist (and a handy character to have in any crime novel.) In What Men Say, the fourth book in the series, she now lives in a canal side house in Oxford, commuting to London on teaching days. 

The books opens at the housewarming party being given by Loretta's friend Bridget and her new American husband Sam Becker. Bridget, a lecturer at St Frideswide's College, has married Sam after a short and tempestuous courtship. She is - unintentionally - pregnant (and possibly pre-eclampsic), and has been persuaded by Sam to move out of her North Oxford house and into the beautiful but isolated Thebes farm, half an hour from the city. The sudden changes in Bridget's life have put a strain on her previously close relationship with Loretta, particularly as the once staunchly feminist Bridget now seems to be letting Sam call all the shots:

'Becker? You mean - it's going to have Sam's name?' Loretta was too astonished to conceal her reaction.....

'I haven't been pressured into it, if that's what you're thinking,' Bridget said crossly....'It's all very well theorising, but when you're actually faced with ....If you must know, it means a lot to Sam.'

This from a woman who had been outraged by her younger sister's decision to change her name when she got married...was more than Loretta could bear.

'I'm sure it does. I'm sure it's meant a lot to men throughout the ages, which is why- '

'Oh, for God's sake, Loretta, spare me the lecture. Can't you see it's personal?'

'And that isn't political, all of a sudden?'

The housewarming party is in full swing when a child climbs into a locked barn and finds the decaying corpse of an unknown woman. Who she is, who killed her and why, are the questions to which the police need answers. 

Loretta is roped in to try to protect Bridget from the investigations and excavations at the farm, and more importantly from the tabloid press, She takes her friend back to her own house, but as the days pass Bridget seems to be acting more and more erratically. Meanwhile the police think the answer lies close to home, and appear to be focusing on Bridget herself as the likely killer. When Bridget asks Loretta to provide her with a false alibi, Loretta doesn't know what to do - could Bridget really be involved in murder, and if so, why? With John Tracey's help, Loretta tries to find answers. 

What Men Say is firmly rooted in the second wave feminism in which I, and no doubt Smith, were so embroiled in the 1980s/90s. It's the time of Susie Orbach and Ann Oakley, of Greenham Common Peace Camps Spare Rib, women's groups and collectives. I was delighted to see a reference to the Boston Women's Health Book Collective's Our Bodies, Ourselves - one of the first books encouraging women actively to engage with and take control of their own sexuality. I still have my well-read copy. 

Loretta is horrified at Bridget's capitulation to what looks like a very unequal marriage, and to traditional motherhood - but when Bridget stays (and stays...) with Loretta, she (grudgingly, it must be said) allows her friend to treat her like a servant; there seems to be as little equality between the two women as there is between Bridget and Sam. Even though I think some of Bridget's behaviour is intended to highlight the way some women do change when in a relationship with a man, and Loretta's willingness to drop everything to go to Bridget's aid is perhaps meant to exemplify female solidarity, I still found Loretta's constant concern for her welfare a little baffling, especially when the latter is so demanding and unreliable. 

I was also a bit surprised at the way in which the female police Inspector is almost vilified throughout the book. I'm not an apologist for the police, but to me both Loretta and Bridget seem to be very hostile to any form of questioning whatsoever. Do nice middle-class people really say;

'Yes, yes, you can skip the lecture'

when they are told their co-operation is required? 

Or cry 'not again!' when the Inspector has to dash off mid-questioning?

But quibbles aside, What Men Say is a very good read. Smith's prose flows without a ripple, her dialogue is realistic, her characters nuanced. The action moves along at a pace, there is no waffle. I didn't work out the identity of the murderer (I hardly ever do...), and found myself racing to finish the book and find out who it was. 

I loved all the references to a time of which I have very fond memories. It seems incredible now to read that Loretta, a part-time lecturer and writer with no other source of income, can apparently afford a house in North Oxford with river frontage, but maybe that was true thirty years ago?  And the many references to finding cash for payphones and leaving handwritten notes remind us just how much the world has changed in such a short time - was it easier to write crime novels when the only phone anyone had was sitting on the table in the hall? At a couple of points in What Men Say, important information is not passed on because the informant can't find a phone or hasn't time to make the call - now we'd just Whatsapp it. 

I enjoyed this novel as much for its setting, in time and place, as for its plot. I wonder if Joan Smith would consider writing another book to update us on Loretta's life today? 

What Men Say by Joan Smith was originally published by Chatto and Windus.